Meta-analysis: heritability of different traits

Polderman et al. recently published in Nature Genetics a meta-analysis of twin correlations and reported variance components for 17,804 traits. In total, 2,748 publications including 14,558,903 partly dependent twin pairs, virtually all published twin studies of complex traits, were taken into consideration.

For 69% of the traits studied, the observed twin correlations are consistent with a simple and parsimonious model where twin resemblance is solely due to additive genetic variation. In the context of the recent advancements of genomic technologies (e.g. exome/genome sequencing), this study and the MaTCH webtool which can be used to visualize its results can be particularly useful for future gene-maping endeavors and for better understanding the pathophysiology of complex traits.